As soon as he read this, Captain Porter made sail at once for Cape Frio. He remained cruising about here for two or three weeks, waiting for the "Constitution," and occasionally going in chase of a strange sail. Once he succeeded in making a capture of an English schooner, which he sent in as a prize in charge of one of his midshipmen. He could get no information that was to be relied on, but was all the while disturbed by vague rumors of something going on among the English and American ships in the neighborhood. At last, upon putting in at St. Catherine's, he heard that an American sloop-of-war had been brought into Rio by the "Montagu" ship-of-the-line, and that an American frigate had sunk an English frigate. He concluded then that the captured sloop must be the "Hornet," and the victorious frigate the "Constitution," and that there was not much reason for his delaying longer in those parts. As it turned out, the rumor about the frigate was true, for, as we have already seen, the "Constitution" had captured and sunk the "Java;" but the other story was false, for instead of being captured, the "Hornet" had gone off to the coast of Guiana, where she succeeded in sinking the "Peacock," after which she had followed the "Constitution" home. "At any rate," thought Porter, "the cruise in the Pacific can be made just as well without the help of the other ships, and they do not seem to be anywhere hereabout, so I may as well go on without them." This determined, the "Essex" laid in a stock of fresh provisions, and made her final preparations for the passage around the Cape. The captain expected to be gone for a long time, and in fact it was nearly two years before he finally returned. During the whole period, he was to be cruising in those distant seas, with no word of direction or encouragement from home, and with the whole care and responsibility of his ship's company resting upon him alone. But he was a man of such iron nerve and self-reliance and strength of purpose, that there was little danger that his spirits and his energy would ever flag. It was to him that all on board the ship were to look for support and guidance, and as they soon found out, they could have had no better man for their commander. For Captain Porter was a bold and hardy seaman, who knew his business well, and who feared neither the elements nor the enemy; and though he believed in strict obedience, and insisted upon having it, he believed too in lightening as far as in him lay the burdens of his men. He despised the cat-o'-nine-tails, which in those rough times was always used to flog the sailors on board our ships-of-war, and never would inflict this punishment when he could bring about his object by other means. Two hours in every afternoon, from four o'clock till six, when there was no serious work on hand, he allowed the blue-jackets to skylark as they liked, and at these times they could throw off the restraints of discipline and frolic to their hearts' content. The